Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technology has been around since the 1940s, but it is only really since giant US retailer Wal-Mart mandated its top suppliers to deliver goods using palettes containing RFID tags by January 2005 that the media and vendors have been in a state of frenzy over this technology. Widely billed as the killer application of the decade, RFID simply involves various kinds of tags consisting of a chip and antenna, attached to pallets, cases, or individual items to provide real-time wireless communication with readers on the status of the tagged items.

In the retail environment, the Electronic Product Code (EPC) is a unique number used to identify a specific item in the supply chain. The EPC is stored on an RFID tag. Once a reader receives the EPC from a tag, it can be associated with dynamic data held in a database.